


Entente Cordiale

by fredbassett



Series: Stephen/Ryan series [84]
Category: Primeval
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-01
Updated: 2013-12-01
Packaged: 2018-01-03 03:55:02
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 21,518
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1065466
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fredbassett/pseuds/fredbassett
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Ryan whisks Stephen way to an undisclosed location, but birthday presents aren't the only surprises that come Stephen's way.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

Stephen knew perfectly well that if the words ‘are we there yet’ crossed his lips once more, there was a very high chance that Ryan would simply stop the hire car in the middle of the road and spank him, but the temptation was almost irresistible as they passed the French countryside by at speed. His lover was throwing their vehicle around narrow, winding roads with as much aplomb – and blatant disregard for human life – as any of the locals, whilst still steadfastly refusing to reveal their destination, despite Stephen’s most shameless wheedling.

All Stephen knew was that they were now heading roughly north-west away from a small airport near a town called Brive-la-Gaillard in the Dordogne – an airport that he hadn’t even known existed before that afternoon. They’d flown out of London City on a grey, damp morning but somewhere over the Channel they’d left the clouds behind. France had been wreathed in sunshine and they’d flown over a patchwork landscape of fields, forests and rivers before landing at an airport that was even smaller than the one they’d left two and a half hours previously.

The heat had wrapped itself around Stephen like a down jacket as soon as he’d stepped out of the plane. It was a far cry from the foul weather of probably the worst English summer on record and Stephen had immediately started to luxuriate in the warmth, much to Ryan’s amusement. By the time they’d walked through minimal security checks, their bags had been waiting for them and there had been no queue at the car hire terminal. Ryan had declined the offer of a sat nav and Stephen couldn’t decide whether his lover had been to the area before or had simply memorised the route. And Ryan was steadfastly refusing to reply to any questions on the subject.

They were now passing a long, sinuous lake, the deep blue sky reflected on its surface. On the opposite shore, Stephen could see a sandy beach and he shot Ryan a hopeful look. It was a while since they’d had the opportunity to swim outdoors.

“Maybe,” Ryan said answering his unspoken question. “If you’re good.”

“I’m always good.” Stephen ran his tongue suggestively around his lips.

“No, you’re not.” Ryan slid his hand up Stephen’s thigh and brushed his fingers lightly across his crotch. “Sometimes you’re fucking amazing.”

The warmth in Ryan’s voice brought an unexpected flutter to Stephen’s stomach. He’d worked out as soon as Ryan had handed him a ready-packed bag and announced that Lester had given them five days off that he was being taken away somewhere for his birthday, but he certainly hadn’t expected Ryan to have arranged a trip abroad. He captured Ryan’s hand in his and brought it to his lips, pressing a quick kiss to the long fingers before replacing the hand on the gear lever.

“Don’t you trust my driving, Hart?”

Stephen rolled his eyes. “I have complete faith in your ability to jack me off and drive these roads at the same time, but it’s the other buggers I’m not so sure about.” He winced as a small white Renault van passed by at a wholly illegal speed with the usual heart-stopping lack of distance between its wing mirrors and theirs. He wasn’t a nervous passenger by any means, but the French did turn driving country roads into something of an extreme sport.

By the time they’d reached the end of the lake, Ryan had amply demonstrated his ability to multi-task and Stephen had a raging hard-on, but any thoughts he was entertaining of finding a quiet spot by the roadside were rapidly dashed by their entry into a small village, followed a few minutes later by a turn onto a more major road.

“Are we…”

Ryan’s hand shot out and gripped Stephen’s erection firmly through his jeans. “Don’t push your luck, Hart, or I might decide that you don’t get to come until your birthday.”

Stephen was about to point out that his birthday wasn’t until the following day but commonsense got the better of him. Ryan was notorious for always rising to a challenge and Stephen was already feeling decidedly randy, so on this occasion, discretion was almost certainly the better part of valour.

“Can I have an…” A warning squeeze made him bite back the word ice-cream. Informing Ryan that he needed a pee probably wouldn’t go down well, either.

Unfortunately, the wide, straight road they were currently on – signposted to Terrasson and Perigueux – didn’t require Ryan to keep both hands on the wheel for any length of time and by the time they took a left turn over a bridge into another almost impossibly picturesque small town, Stephen was considering the prospect that he would almost certainly be needing a change of trousers before they reached their destination.

The need for Ryan to navigate his way past cars parked on both sides of a street nestling between two rows of mainly old, half-timbered houses brought him some relief. The buildings clung on one side to the bank of a wide river and on the other to the slope of a hill topped by an imposing church. Stephen admired his surroundings but he had a nasty feeling that the respite from the attentions of his lover’s wicked hand would only be short-lived. Ryan took another left turn at a set of traffic lights and they started to make their way around another hillside, heading away from the town, dashing Stephen’s theory that they had been about to reach their destination.

With a steep slope on both sides and an over-abundance of blind bends, Stephen was beginning to think that the frequent spikes of adrenaline coursing through his body were as likely to result in a messy climax as the teasing of Ryan’s skilled fingers. His only consolation was the fact that the dark-trunked trees clustered tightly on the side of the valley would at least prevent them plummeting all the way down the hillside…

A green Peugeot shot around the bend towards them, practically on their side of the road. Stephen’s heart rate jumped and his dick twitched in reaction as Ryan skilfully rode the very edge of the road with no noticeable drop in speed. Stephen breathed a quiet but fervent prayer to whatever god or goddess might smile kindly on anyone cursed with a mad Special Forces boyfriend. He briefly considered closing his eyes, before deciding that if he had to die, he preferred to do it with them open.

“Have you never played chicken on roads like this before?” Ryan asked, clearly enjoying himself far more than was healthy.

Stephen winced, remembering the time he’d spent on a dig in Chile when Cutter had insisted on doing most of the driving. “Yes, but after two years of therapy I thought I’d managed to put it behind me.” He took his eyes off the road long enough to glance at Ryan. “You’re enjoying this, you bastard,” he said accusingly. “I bet we could have got where we’re going by staying on a nice, sensible road in the valley, couldn’t we?”

Ryan’s grin was all the answer he got as, without warning, his lover smoothly braked and pulled the car off the road into a small parking area marked ‘Reserve de chasse’ and turned the engine off. A moment later, Ryan had reclined Stephen’s seat, popped open the button on his jeans and eased down the zip to free his hard cock. The seatbelt around his waist held Stephen firmly in place as Ryan bent over and wrapped his lips around his over-sensitive flesh, tonguing the slit in a way that always drove him wild.

With a quiet gasp, Stephen reached a very satisfactory climax in his lover’s mouth. Ryan pulled back from his still half-hard cock and delivered an open-mouthed kiss that tasted of Stephen’s come and the mint that Ryan had been sucking as they’d left the airport.

“Can’t have you turning up at the hotel looking like you’ve smuggled a steroidal stoat into the country down your trousers,” Ryan commented, restarting the engine and pulling back out onto the road while Stephen was still working out how to get his seat upright again. “Now put your dick away, there’s a good boy.”

The car snaked down to the bottom of the valley, past a field full of the tallest sunflowers Stephen had ever seen, over a stone bridge across a small river and out onto a wider road along the bottom of yet another valley. A couple of kilometres further on, Ryan flicked on the indicator and prepared to make a left turn. A sign by the roadside read Manoir d’Hautegente. A long straight driveway lined with neatly clipped bushes led to a large, ivy-covered building that immediately reminded Stephen of Rookery Hall, the hotel where he’d spent a very pleasant few days convalescing from the after-effects of a nasty fever as a result of an insect bite in the Jurassic.

Much to Stephen’s amusement, a sign warned drivers to be aware of ducks. Ryan pulled into a parking area surrounded by a tall beech hedge and grinned at him. “You can say it now.”

“Are we there yet?” Stephen returned the grin.

“Yes, Hart, we’re there. Yes, you can have an ice cream and yes, you can have a pee. Happy now?”

Stephen leaned over and kissed Ryan, sucking lightly on his bottom lip. “Very happy. So are you going to tell me how you found this place?”

They grabbed their bags from the boot of the car and walked towards the hotel, crossing another bridge over the same small river they’d driven over before breaking out into the valley. The water tumbled down over a series of small waterfalls and ran next to a wide sweep of neatly-tended grass.

“The owners run a hotel in Courchevel in the winter,” Ryan replied. “Mary and Jim Mitchell’s eldest lad has done some ski chalet work for them and they all spent a long weekend here at Easter.”

Stephen wasn’t surprised by the answer. The Mitchells had a seemingly inexhaustible supply of contacts in the hotel business that quite a few members of the anomaly project had benefitted from.

A trim, dark-haired woman wearing an elegant summer dress smiled at them from behind a desk in the small hallway. “Captain Ryan and Dr Hart, I presume?” She shook hands with them both. “My name is Marie. Welcome to the Manoir. I’ll show you to your room.” Her English was flawless, with only a slight accent in evidence.

She led them up an old oak staircase and into a wide corridor that ran the length of the building. Their room faced the front and had a beautiful view over the mill-stream and gardens. Sunlight streamed in through two tall windows and warmed a large bed covered by a brightly-coloured patchwork quilt. The walls were painted a cheerful lemon-yellow and a polished wooden wardrobe dominated one corner of the spacious room.

“Would you like me to have some drinks brought up for you?” Marie offered. “Or perhaps you’d like to relax on the terrace?”

“A beer on the terrace sounds good,” Ryan said smiling. “We’ll be down shortly when we’ve freshened up.”

The moment the door had closed behind her, Ryan pulled Stephen into a bruising kiss, his hands moving quickly and surely over Stephen’s body, divesting him of his teeshirt, undoing his jeans and pushing them down over his hips. Stephen managed to kick off his trainers and step out of his clothes while Ryan broke off their kiss to strip off his own clothes and rummage inside his bag for a tube of lubricant. Stephen dropped to his knees on the thick rug beside the bed and a moment later, Ryan’s barely-slick cock was demanding entrance to his body. Stephen pushed back eagerly enjoying the burn from the unprepared penetration. His lover drove deeply into him and started to fuck Stephen hard and fast, mingling pleasure and pain the way that Ryan knew he loved.

“If you’ve going to come, do it into your hand, Hart, not over the bed, there’s good boy,” Ryan instructed him, punctuating each part of the sentence with a deep thrust, raking Stephen’s prostate unerringly every time.

Stephen obediently dropped a hand to his hard, leaking cock, cupping it around the head as Ryan slammed into him with increasing force. Stephen could feel his climax building and a moan of pleasure escaped his lips. Ryan’s balls were slapping against his arse and he could smell his lover’s arousal. Sweat sprang out on Stephen’s skin and he clenched his muscles hard around Ryan’s dick, drawing a satisfactory gasp from him. They were both close, skin sweat-slick and hot, the smell of sex hanging heavily in the air. Stephen felt Ryan’s rhythm falter and with a final thrust against his prostate that was enough to promptly send him over the edge, his lover emptied himself deep inside Stephen’s receptive body.

They slipped into an untidy sprawl on the rug, kissing deeply and holding each other until the tremors of climax had passed. Stephen was dimly aware of Ryan pulling his hand up to his mouth and licking the come off his sticky palm, then he was turned onto his stomach on the floor as Ryan proceeded to spread his arse-cheeks and lap gently at his well-fucked hole.

“Hell of a way to start the holiday,” he murmured, as Ryan’s tongue dipped inside him again. “Can I have that ice cream now?”


	2. Chapter 2

The warm drift of hands over his body and the rasp of Stephen’s stubble against the back of his neck drew Ryan inexorably out of sleep. He was lying in a comfortable sprawl on crisp cotton sheets, his head pillowed on his arms and it didn’t take much thought to work out how Stephen wanted to begin his birthday celebrations. Ryan spread his legs in mute invitation and a moment later, a slick finger slipped inside him, to be replaced shortly afterwards by Stephen’s cock.

In contrast to their exertions of the previous afternoon and evening, Stephen now appeared determined to take his time in bringing them both to climax. Early morning sunlight streamed in through the open windows, bathing the room in warmth, even though Ryan’s watch told him that it was only 6.30am. Ryan smiled contentedly. Stephen knew exactly how much pressure to apply – and where – to have Ryan whining softly into the crook of his own arm and begging for more.

“Turn over, I want to watch you come,” Stephen said, nipping lightly at the back of his neck before pulling out and kneeling upright as Ryan quickly obeyed the instruction he’d been given.

The sensation of his lover sliding slowly back into his already-slick hole drew a moan of pure pleasure from Ryan’s lips. Stephen took his weight on his arms and started to thrust gently, raking Ryan’s prostate on each pass, setting up an increasingly delicious friction that spread warmth throughout his body.

“Touch yourself,” Stephen instructed.

Ryan took his own cock in hand and started to stroke himself, using the pre-come already beading at the tip to ease the drag on his skin. Knowing how much Stephen enjoyed watching him like this, Ryan did his best to draw out his pleasure for as long as possible, but he knew he wasn’t going to be able to hold out for many more minutes. Stephen’s pupils were so dilated that no more than a rim of blue was visible and Ryan lost himself in the intoxicating intensity of his lover’s gaze.

Warmth washed though Ryan’s body and his cock twitched in his hand, firing come across his chest. A smile quirked Stephen’s lips, one of the uncomplicated, happy smiles that Ryan had once had to work so hard to achieve but which had now become almost second-nature to his reserved lover. Stephen drove into him hard, a gasp of pleasure on his lips as he reached his own climax.

Afterwards, as they lay entwined on the bed, Stephen lazily dipped the tips of his fingers into the sticky mess on Ryan’s stomach and offered them to him to lick. Ryan obliged.

“Fancy a run before breakfast?” Stephen enquired.

“It’s your birthday,” Ryan said then went back to suckling Stephen’s fingers.

“You choose for me,” Stephen said. “I’ve just done all the hard work…”

Ryan laughed. “All right, birthday boy. Run first then back for a shower and breakfast, then you get to open your presents, and after that we’re going to have lunch somewhere and maybe do something vaguely cultural, then we’ll have a meal here this evening. How does that sound?”

Stephen kissed him lightly on the lips. “Wonderful, but you missed a few things out.”

“I was intending to improvise on the subject of making love.”

“Improvisation is good,” Stephen acknowledged.

Ten minutes later, dressed in shorts and teeshirts, they were running down a dirt track behind the manoir, roughly parallel with the small river that formed a wide loop around the front of the hotel and then meandered down the valley over a series of small waterfalls. Trees shadowed the track and the air was blissfully cool, although it was obvious from the cloudless sky that it was going to be a hot day. Ryan set an easy pace, one that they could both keep up for hours if necessary, although he wasn’t intending to run for more than an hour or so.

Their circuit took them up a long, gentle incline past the field of sunflowers they’d seen from their car the day before and then back into the forest again. The slender tree trunks on the hillsides were wreathed with dark moss that gave this particular region its name, Perigord noir, after the black oaks that grew in such abundance, playing host to the truffles that they’d enjoyed the previous evening in the most delicious omelette Ryan had ever eaten in his life.

At what he judged to be a sensible turnaround point, Ryan finally gave in to the dictates of his bladder and stopped for a pee as Stephen leaned against a tree, wiping the sweat from his forehead and unashamedly watched as Ryan relieved himself.

“You’re a kinky little sod, Hart,” Ryan remarked.

Stephen grinned. “Come on, it’s not something we’ve ever done, is it?”

Ryan shook himself off and tucked his dick away. “I’m not sure I see the attraction of piss-play, to be quite honest. But it’s your birthday, sweetie…”

A light kiss on the lips was all the answer he got, but he could already see Stephen starting to turn the idea over in his mind. Knowing his lover’s penchant for experimentation, Ryan was pretty sure that at some point in the not too distant future, his sex-life was about to take yet another interesting turn.

The hotel shower was easily big enough to accommodate the two of them but for once they were both more focussed on eating breakfast than making love. A smiling waiter showed them to a table on the terrace in front of the hotel overlooking the old mill-race and promptly equipped them with a large pot of coffee and a plate of croissants and Danish pastries.

Eventually, with nothing more than crumbs left on the table. Ryan leaned back in his chair and smiled contentedly. As much as he loved a good English fry-up, there was still a lot to be said for fresh croissants and the ones they’d just eaten had been excellent.

Once back in the privacy of their bedroom, he drew Stephen into a long, slow kiss and then said quietly, “Presents?”

Stephen’s face lit up like a kid’s on Christmas morning, reminding Ryan of the pleasure his daughter always showed when given a gift. And thinking of Vicky, he’d need to make sure they called her before going out anywhere. She’d been most adamant that she wanted to speak to Stephen on his birthday. She’d even posted him a present that was hidden away in Ryan’s bag.

Almost a third of Ryan’s travelling bag had been taken up with presents, so it was fortunate that the airline allowance was 12kg of hand-luggage and 23kg of hold-baggage. It was equally fortunate that he was used to carrying heavy weights for long periods. He ceremoniously drew a series of neatly-wrapped parcels out of his bag and laid them out on the bed. Stephen grinned in delight at the brightly-coloured wrapping paper covered with cute cartoon dinosaurs that Ryan had chosen. He promptly started poking and prodding each package, then picking them up and shaking them, while Ryan watched in amusement.

“You pick one first, then I’ll choose the next one for you,” Ryan told him.

Stephen promptly pounced on one package and started to carefully remove the paper to reveal the soft folds of a dark blue shirt, chosen to match Stephen’s eyes. The material was deliciously soft and Stephen promptly stroked it like the shirt was a cat, his eyes already shining with pleasure. He loved new clothes, but rarely seemed to buy anything for himself, which made Ryan’s job reasonably easy for both birthdays and Christmas.

Ryan fished out a small parcel next and handed it over. It contained a miniature Leatherman tool, with a wickedly sharp blade and various other features. He knew Stephen had wanted one for a while but had declared it was too much of an extravagance.

Stephen leaned over and kissed him lingeringly. “You’re spoiling me.”

Ryan returned the kiss, nipping lightly at Stephen’s bottom lip. “And that’s a problem because…?”

In answer, Stephen grabbled another present of the pile, removed the wrapping paper and stared in delight at an old, battered book. “Bloody hell, where did you pick this up from? They’re as rare as rocking-horse shit.”

Stephen’s enthusiasm was infectious and Ryan grinned back at him. “That would be telling, sweetheart.” The book was a first edition of Gideon Mantell’s The Geology of the south-east of England that he had tracked down to a bookseller in the United States. Stephen loved old books on prehistoric animals and Ryan had managed to find three that he hadn’t already got. Sensing a theme, Stephen swooped on the next book-shaped package with unerring accuracy, letting out another cry of delight when the dinosaur paper was peeled back to reveal a scarce copy of Prehistoric Animals by J. Augusta illustrated by Z. Burian. Ryan knew that much of the detail was out of date, but the illustrations were superb, and surprisingly accurate. That was followed by another old dinosaur book and two new CDs.

Next, Ryan handed over the present that Vicky had sent for Stephen. A teeshirt printed with a cartoon T-rex and the words It’s my birthday and I’ll eat what I want. Stephen grinned. “That was sweet of her.”

A couple of pairs of stripy socks of a type that Stephen had an unaccountable fondness for, another teeshirt and a pair of black, multi-pocketed trousers completed the haul of presents.

“Happy?” Ryan asked quietly, unable to miss the fact that Stephen’s eyes were brimming with unshed tears.

“Very happy,” Stephen replied, pressing a soft kiss into the palm of Ryan’s hand.

Ryan knew that Stephen still wasn’t used to being spoiled. His parents had both died when he was in his early 20s and since then there had been no one in his life who had ever lavished gifts on him. From what Ryan had gathered Cutter had always marked his birthday with a bottle of decent Scotch and a book of some sort, both of which were waiting back in their flat for Stephen’s return. With them were several other presents from members of the team that Ryan hadn’t been able to bring with him, although he had brought all the cards, which Stephen was now opening and reading with evident pleasure, including one from Lyle that certainly wouldn’t pass muster in polite company. Inside, in Lester’s neat handwriting, were written the words, ‘Blame Jon, he chose it, not me.’ Quite why Lyle thought a card containing a picture of an orang-utan fucking a watermelon was appropriate for a birthday was anyone’s guess, but Ryan had to admit that it was certainly different.

For the next hour, Stephen insisted on reading his books, texting everyone who had sent him a card and phoning Vicky, while Ryan lounged on the bed and watched indulgently.

By 10am, Ryan judged that he had a reasonable chance of dragging Stephen’s attention away from his presents. “Fancy a bike ride?” he asked. “An hour and a half will take us to a nice restaurant for lunch. Marie has got some decent bikes we can borrow.”

“Sounds wonderful.” Stephen reached out and touched the backs of his fingers lightly to Ryan’s cheek. “Thanks, Tom. This has been a brilliant birthday.”

Ryan smiled and pressed a light kiss into the palm of Stephen’s hand. “It’s not over yet.”

The bikes they borrowed turned out to be very good, ideally suited to a combination of roadwork and the dirt tracks that appeared to abound in the area. Ryan set a leisurely pace up a long, slow incline that wound out of the valley in the direction of a village called St. Armand de Coly. A massive, fortified church dominated a picturesque collection of houses both new and old, their yellow stonework warmed by the sun. From what Ryan has seen so far, the local building style lent itself to tall, steeply-pitched roofs. At first he’d presumed it was a means to preventing snow settling in winter but, according to the conversation he’d had with Marie in the bar the previous night, they were actually a by-product of the long history of tobacco cultivation in the surrounding countryside. Bunches of tobacco leaves were hung from the rafters to dry and the style continued to the present day.

By the time they reached the crest of the hill, they were both sweating freely and had consigned their teeshirts to the small day-sacks strapped to the backs of their bikes. They were both carrying bottles of frozen water that provided a most welcome drink while they admired the view. A heat haze shimmered over the countryside and a herd of brown cattle in a nearby field had sensibly taken advantage of the shade offered by a grove of walnut trees.

The good thing about having attained the summit was the long, glorious free-wheel on the other side, down into yet another valley. At the bottom of the hill, the half-timbered houses in the small town of Montignac clustered along the banks of the Vézère river. According to Ryan’s guidebook, the town was home to the world-famous prehistoric cave of Lascaux. The cave itself was closed to the general public, but an equally-famous replica had been created adjacent to the original, and Ryan was almost tempted to overcome his dislike of caves to see the paintings. He knew that Stephen was keen to see them if he could.

As they approached a wide bridge over the river, Ryan noticed a huge array of brightly-coloured plastic flowers strung on wires across the road. It looked like the town had been done up for some sort of festival. The main street, with its closely packed houses, much like the ones they’d passed the previous day, was gaily decked out in a mix of blue and white flowers, whilst every side street sported ones in different colours, some yellow, others orange, some like miniature sunflowers in yellow with a black centre, others resembling poppies. The whole town was a riot of colour.

They pedalled lazily down the main street, enjoying the shade cast by the massed ranks of plastic flowers above their heads. The road continued along the valley and out into the countryside again, staying roughly parallel to the river. A couple of kilometres outside the town, they passed a signpost to the Chateau du Losse, which was one of the attractions on Ryan’s list of possible places to visit.

“Looks nice,” Stephen commented, as they passed fairy-tale towers rising above a high, encircling beech hedge.

“We could go there on the way back if you fancy it,” Ryan said.

Stephen smiled and nodded. “I’ve never visited a real chateau. What else is around here?”

“A tourist park with a load of plastic dinosaurs.”

Stephen’s eyes widened. “You’re joking!”

“No, there was leaflet back at the hotel.”

“Bit of a busman’s holiday. I reckon I can live without dinosaurs for a weekend.”

“I was hoping you’d say that…” Ryan pushed down on the pedals and increased the pace now they were on a flat, straight road with surprisingly little traffic. “I wouldn’t mind giving that replica cave a go if you fancy that.”

The villages they passed through were all chocolate-box pretty, neat and tidy, with well-tended stone flower troughs by the roadside and plentiful supplies of hanging baskets. Each village seemed to have several bars, all with tables set out on the pavements, shaded with brightly coloured awnings.

On Marie’s recommendation, Ryan was aiming for a village called St. Leon sur Vézère, which was said to have several excellent cafes, a very pretty church and a nice walk in the shade of the trees on the opposite back of the river. There were also places in the river where it was possible to swim, and Ryan knew how much his lover liked the feel of clean, cool water on his skin on a hot day. He’d taken the precaution of adding swimming trunks and thin, absorbent towels to their packs and the idea of a cool dip before lunch was getting more attractive by the minute.

As they cycled into St Leon, Ryan drew up next to Stephen for a moment and said, “Fancy a swim?”

Stephen’s eyes lit up for the second time that day like a kid at Christmas. “Too fucking right I do!”

Ryan had done his homework, and a near eidetic memory for maps that had stood him in good stead throughout his career in the army led him through the village to a narrow iron bridge over which only one car at a time was permitted to cross. Beside the bridge was a small municipal campsite on one side of the river and a staging point for canoes on the other. They left their bikes on the river bank and changed quickly into swimwear.

The water was deliciously cold on Ryan’s over-heated body. He struck out into the middle of the river, with Stephen next to him, feeling nothing more than a gentle current. The water was clean and mostly shallow, apart from a well-scoured central channel, but it was clear from old debris on the banks that in winter the river was both deeper and faster. As they played in the water, splashing and ducking each other like children, a group of people in canoes passed by, smiling and saying ‘bonjour’, even though it was clear from their accents that they were as English as Ryan and Stephen.

Half an hour swimming lazily up and down in the deepest part of the river was enough to cool them both down to a very comfortable level, and ten minutes lounging around on the grassy bank in the sunshine was enough to dry them off. The sight of Stephen’s long tanned limbs and damp, spiky hair had gone straight to Ryan’s groin and he’d ended up lying on his stomach, much to Stephen’s amusement, in an attempt to hide his very-obvious erection from sight. Eventually, when he wasn’t able to put it off any longer, a towel around his waist provided a modicum of dignity while he quickly redressed.

Stephen glanced speculatively at the tree cover on the other side of the river. “How about we find a quiet spot and I’ll blow you?”

“Might be easier said than done,” Ryan said regretfully as another party of canoeists sailed past them on the river.

“Won’t know unless we try. There’s bound to be somewhere down that track.” Without waiting for an answer, Stephen grabbed his bike and set off over the bridge.

Ryan followed, discovering in the process just how uncomfortable it was to ride a bike with an erection.

The track Stephen was aiming for ran along the river on the other side, along the edge of the dinosaur park he’d seen advertised as they’d entered the village. Much to their amusement, they found themselves being stared at by large green creature looking more like something out of a cartoon than prehistory. It looked like a cross between an ankylosaur (but without the club-tail) and a baby diplodocus, and Ryan felt it said altogether too much about his life over the last couple of years that such names and identifications were now become almost second-nature thanks to Cutter’s lectures on the subject.

“Definitely plastic,” Stephen commented.

“Thank God for that,” Ryan muttered, wincing at the jolt to the groin he’d just received from a bump in the track and wondering if waiting for his hard-on to subside naturally wouldn’t have been a better idea.

The track they were on was relatively straight and once they could see for a reasonable distance in both directions, Ryan was promptly dragged into the shade of an enormous willow tree. Stephen dropped to his knees, freed Ryan’s cock and promptly started sucking. Ryan groaned and started to thrust into Stephen’s hot mouth. The undergrowth shielded them to some extent from the river, but if anyone passed by in a canoe close to the bank they’d be treated to the sight of Ryan fucking his lover’s face with some degree of urgency.

The sight of Stephen on his knees with his lips wrapped around Ryan’s dick was as hot as the mid-day sun that had been beating down on their backs just a short while ago and in less than a minute Ryan emptied his balls down his lover’s greedy throat, while Stephen brought himself off with his own hand.

“Remind me whose birthday it is again, darling?” Stephen murmured huskily, before sharing the taste of Ryan’s come with him in a deep kiss.

“Yours, and you like sucking my cock,” Ryan pointed out lazily as he rearranged his clothing into some semblance of decency.

“And here was me thinking I kept my base desires well hidden,” Stephen said, remounting his bike and setting off back in the direction of the village.

“Sweetheart, the world, his wife and the bloody dog know about your base desires since you hit ‘reply all’ on that email from Lester when he called the last budget meeting.” Stephen’s inventive list of the things he’d rather be doing at 3pm on a Friday afternoon had gone viral in less than five minutes and had definitely passed into legend in the Anomaly Research Centre. The technician who had been heard to ask in all innocence what felching was had caused almost as much amusement.

Ten minutes later, they were sitting at a table outside the café that Marie had recommended, with Stephen still looking wholly debauched. To Ryan’s amusement, Stephen was attracting more than the usual number of envious looks from both men and women and the young male waiter was proving remarkably attentive. Ryan leaned back in his chair and sipped at a very welcome cold beer, revelling in the fact that easily the most gorgeous man he had ever met was his lover.

“What are you thinking about?” Stephen asked in a soft voice.

Stephen rarely fished for compliments and was normally wholly unconscious of the effect he had on others, but Ryan could see from the look of mischief dancing in Stephen’s blue eyes that for once he was wholly aware of the minor stir he was causing.

“You,” Ryan admitted. “I’m wondering how often I can manage to fuck you this weekend and still have the strength to eat.”

Before Stephen had the chance to reply, the waiter came back to take their order. They both ordered confit de canard – one of the specialities of the region – together with Sarlardais potatoes, which turned out to be utterly delicious: potatoes and onions fried in duck fat with added stock. As far as Ryan could tell, this wasn’t an area that catered particularly well for vegetarians, but if you liked duck or goose, and anything that came as a by-product of either, you certainly wouldn’t go hungry. They finished off the meal with a selection of excellent cheeses and a slice of apple tart. Ryan could certainly get used to that sort of over-indulgence and the contented look on Stephen’s face told him he wasn’t the only one thinking like that.

The pavement provided the perfect spot to sit and watch the world go by. The neighbouring tables were filled with an assortment of other tourists and what sounded like a few locals as well. Two men adjacent to them were discussing the merits of different rivers for fishing in a strong local accent that Ryan was struggling to decipher. His own French was adequate, courtesy of several joint operations with the Brigade de Forces Spéciales Terre, the French Special Forces, but he knew his accent was pretty dreadful and a lot of the words and phrases that came as second nature to him certainly couldn’t be used in polite company. Stephen’s French was slightly above school standard, thanks to a French girlfriend in his first year at university, and his natural charm always made up for any grammatical errors or dodgy pronunciation.

The squeal of tyres on a French road hardly classed as unusual, but the two black vans that pulled up a little way down the street and disgorged a group of heavily-armed men dressed in dark green trousers, tight teeshirts of the same colour and black-equipments vests certainly weren’t a common sight, even in a country where ordinary policemen carried guns.

Ryan stiffened, eyes automatically scanning the area for threats, as the men fanned out in a line towards the river. Both tourists and locals watched the group – soldiers by the look of them – with interest that hadn’t yet escalated into alarm. One of the men stood by the back of one of the vans, talking in rapid French into a radio. He had an HK416 assault rifle slung across his chest, what was almost certainly a PAMAS G1 pistol holstered on his left thigh, and another weapon of a type Ryan didn’t recognise strapped to his other leg.

The man was a shade under 6 foot, with short, ash-blond hair in stark counterpoint to the heavy dark stubble shading his face. He wore wrap-around sunglasses shielding light grey eyes that Ryan knew had stared down the barrels of more lethal weapons than nearly anyone of his acquaintance.

Ryan forced himself to remain in his chair, drinking calmly from his third cold beer of the day even though his heart rate had accelerated sharply. Beside him, Stephen was staring at the men, an appraising look on his face.

“Whoever they are they mean business,” Stephen muttered quietly. “The tourists haven’t a clue but the locals don’t seem overly surprised.”

Ryan had noticed the same thing. The group leader started to walk towards the café, as yet unaware of their presence. He’d carried out a rapid and professional threat assessment and now appeared wholly relaxed as he stepped forwards to shake hands with a rotund and cheerful-looking man in his late 60s who had just walked out of the village Mairie – the local equivalent of a Town Hall – to greet him. The man, presumably the mayor, pointed in the direction of the church. The soldier nodded and spoke into his radio. He asked a question that Ryan couldn’t catch and the other man shook his head.

The two men walked down the main road in the direction of the church. As the blond-haired soldier drew level with the café, he stopped in his tracks and stared at Ryan as though he couldn’t believe the evidence of his own eyes.

“Bonjour, Etienne,” Ryan said quietly. “Comment ça va? Le long temps, aucun voient." He wasn’t sure that the phrase was strictly correct, but the other man clearly understood his meaning.

Etienne Lafarge stared down at him, his expression of disbelief rapidly being replaced by one of strictly professional neutrality. Ryan’s own poker-face was reflected back at him in the man’s sunglasses and on balance, Ryan thought he was ahead on points when it came to looking nonchalant, which would no doubt be pissing Lafarge off mightily. They’d last worked together on a hostage rescue mission in Lebanon six years ago and he and Frenchman had briefly been lovers, sharing an adrenaline-fuelled release of tension in a seedy hotel in Beirut before they’d gone their separate ways the following morning.

“Ryan,” the Frenchman’s tone was as guarded as his face, but a slight smile quirked one side of his lips. “Long time, no see, as you say, mon ami.” He shot an apologetic smile at the man who was waiting for him, looking puzzled, and then grinned at Ryan. “Call for another beer, I shall be back soon, I have some… business… to attend to first.”

Ryan could tell that Lafarge was staring at Stephen, his curiosity masked by the anti-flash glasses. Stephen stared back at him, an equally inscrutable smile playing across his lips.

With a brief nod to both of them, Lafarge walked away, following the mayor towards the church.

“Who the hell was that?” Stephen asked. “I’m not sure he looked particularly pleased to see you, sweetie.”

“He always was a suspicious bastard.” Ryan sighed. “That was Capitaine Etienne Lafarge of the Brigade de Forces Spéciales Terre.”

“Two of his guys were carrying bloody weird-looking guns,” Stephen commented thoughtfully. “Ryan, why have I got a nasty feeling that we’ve just ended up in the wrong place at the wrong time?”

Ryan sighed. “Story of our bloody lives, sweetie. And there’s no way he’s going to believe that we’ve ended up on his patch by accident.”

Stephen laughed. “No, he won’t. We’re being very restrained not following them, aren’t we?”

“I haven’t finished my beer,” Ryan pointed out. “And we are on holiday.”

Stephen stretched his long legs out in the sun and leaned back in his chair. “Good point, well made, my darling. And a very excellent holiday it is, too. Now, shall I ask the cute little waiter for three beers, or will you?”


	3. Chapter 3

As soon as they reached the privacy of their bedroom, Stephen promptly stripped his clothes off and headed for the shower, leaving Ryan to follow at a slightly more leisurely pace.

“You’re an untidy little sod,” Ryan muttered.

Stephen grinned as he stepped into the shower. He shamelessly took advantage of Ryan’s army-ingrained tidiness but he always made a point of making it up to him in other ways.

Cool water streamed down his over-heated skin, washing away the sweat and dust of the cycle ride back to the hotel. They’d stopped in Montignac on the way and had been able to book themselves onto the last tour of the afternoon in Lascaux II. Ryan had been far too engrossed in sheer wonder at the size and quality of the paintings for any bad memories of previous less pleasant experiences in caves to surface and they had stared up at the decorated ceiling, wholly entranced.

Massive bulls four metres long jostled for space amongst stags with huge, branching antlers, a vividly drawn black cow was depicted jumping over a line of short, fat ponies, whilst a falling horse – presumably driven over a cliff by hunters – was skilfully painted around a curve in the rock. Although they’d been told by the guide how the replica, accurate down to a matter of millimetres, had been created, it had been easy to lose themselves in the atmosphere created by careful lighting and imagine that they were in the real cave. The colours were what had struck Stephen the most. Vivid yellow and red ochres, and brown from charcoal, had all been cleverly mixed to provide life-like detail with an impression of depth and even movement.

The sound of Ryan moving around the bathroom drew him back to the present. His lover was naked, his cock already half-hard. A slow smile spread over Stephen’s face and he ran hands slippery with gel down over his chest, pinching his nipples in passing and then stroking his own cock and balls slowly, putting on a show the way he knew Ryan loved. The shower wasn’t as large as the one in their flat, but from the look on Ryan’s face, he wasn’t going to let minor matters like lack of space stand in the way of his avowed intention to spend their long weekend fucking – and being fucked – as often as was humanly possible.

Ryan slid in next to him. “Room for a little one?”

Stephen slid his hands down Ryan’s well-muscled body to cup his arse and pulled him close for a wet kiss, their hard cocks rubbing against each other. “There’s nothing little about you, darling.” He topped Ryan by an inch or so in height, but the soldier was broader and heavier. Stephen’s hands mapped familiar territory and dipped into the cleft of Ryan’s arse, stroking lightly over his hole, slipping a finger inside him to press against Ryan’s prostate.

He captured Ryan’s groan with his lips and murmured, “My turn to do the fucking, I think, sweetie.”

Ryan obligingly turned around to face the tiled wall. “Don’t over-use the gel,” he commented. “You know I hate farting bubbles.”

Stephen nuzzled the back of Ryan’s neck. “Ever the romantic. Shall I fetch the lube or will a small amount of conditioner suffice, Captain Fussy?”

“Can’t have you leaving wet trails over the carpet, Hart. I’ll settle for the conditioner and as it’s your birthday, you can keep it to a minimum.”

Stephen nipped lightly at Ryan’s shoulder. “You’re spoiling me.”

“Yes, I am, aren’t I?” Ryan folded his arms against the tiles and spread his legs as the water streamed down his shoulders and back.

Stephen squeezed a small dollop of hotel hair conditioner into his palm and dipped his fingers in it before circling Ryan’s tight entrance and rubbing a small amount inside him. Then, before the water had chance to undo his efforts, he slipped his cock between his lover’s arse cheeks and entered him as gently and slowly as he could.

“We have done this before, Hart,” Ryan pointed out sounding amused.

“Once or twice,” Stephen acknowledged.

He held Ryan’s hips firmly in place with both hands and drove inside him in a series of shallow thrusts, enjoying the delicious friction on his cock. Once he was buried balls deep in his lover’s tight arse, Stephen slid his left hand around to stroke Ryan’s cock, bringing him back to full hardness and teasing at the taut ridge of skin under the crown in the way he knew always drove Ryan wild.

Ryan let out a long, slow breath. “Christ, that’s good.”

Stephen laughed and pulled out slowly until the tip of his cock was barely inside his lover’s body and then pushed back in equally slowly, earning him a quiet moan of pleasure.

“Did you believe a word of that bullshit earlier about counter-terrorism exercises?” he asked, continuing to entertain himself by alternately teasing Ryan’s cock and stroking his balls at the same time as slowly fucking him.

“No, of course I didn’t.” Ryan gave a small hiccup of pleasure as Stephen’s cock jabbed at his prostate and he shifted position slightly to facilitate it happening again.

“So what were they up to? I’m bloody sure I heard their delectable captain say bête when he was talking to the mayor.”

“Your ability to shag while keeping up a conversation never ceases to amaze me, Hart,” Ryan commented, thrusting his dick up into Stephen’s encircling fingers in the search for more friction.

Stephen started to drive harder into Ryan’s hot channel while tightening his grip on his cock and stroking him firmly. “I’ve had a lot of practice.”

“I thought I caught that word, too,” Ryan said. “It would be too much of a fucking coincidence, though, wouldn’t it?”

“Do you believe in coincidence?” A hard jab at Ryan’s prostate elicited a breathy moan.

“No, I fucking well don’t,” Ryan panted, pushing back equally hard into Stephen’s groin. “Christ, Stephen, do that again…”

Stephen tightened his grip on the base of Ryan’s cock, holding back any immediate prospect of orgasm, while he ramped up the pressure on the small bundle of nerves in his lover’s body. “Should we tell Lester?”

“Tell him what? That we overheard a French Special Forces captain say the word ‘beast’ to the mayor of small village? Besides, if Lester starts asking questions sod’s law says we’ll end up in the middle of a diplomatic incident faster than you can say… fuck!” The last word emerged as little more than a strangled yelp and was almost certainly not what Ryan had originally intended to say.

“Speaking of fucking, you’ve bedded the unfeasibly attractive Captain Lafarge, haven’t you, darling?” The thought of Ryan fucking – or being fucked by – the French soldier sent an interesting tingle through Stephen’s cock. It had been obvious from the two men’s easy familiarity that they’d been more than just colleagues at some point, but Stephen hoped Ryan wouldn’t interpret his curiosity as jealousy. For all Stephen’s faults and he knew he had plenty, he’d never had any issues with the knowledge that Ryan had been close to other people before him.

“We shagged each other’s brains out in a hotel in Beirut the night after an op six years ago,” Ryan said without hesitation. “I haven’t seen him since.”

“What’s he like?” Stephen asked, leaning over Ryan’s shoulder to suck at his earlobe.

Ryan let out a half-gasp, half-laugh. “He’s a bloody good lay, but I’m not sure that’s quite what you meant, is it? He’s probably the most psychotic fucker I’ve ever worked with apart from Blade.”

Stephen opened his eyes in surprise and promptly got water in them. He also detected a slight cooling in the temperature of the water, so he released his hold on Ryan’s cock and started to shag him in earnest.

The reaction he got to the increased pace was gratifying. He could feel Ryan’s thighs starting to tremble with the effort of holding himself upright and he’d just heard something suspiciously close to a whine that Ryan would no doubt deny if questioned on the subject later. As soon as he stopped distracting himself with conversation, Stephen could feel pleasure surging through him, pooling in his balls, and finally spilling over into an intense climax. Ryan’s cock pulsed in his hands and he felt his lover’s arse spasm around him. Ryan shuddered and pushed back against him, the trembling in his thighs intensifying to the point where Stephen slipped his arms around Ryan’s waist to help him stay upright.

Later, still damp, with small aftershocks running through their bodies, they lay entwined on top of everal large towels spread on the bed and kissed lazily, warmed by the early evening sunlight streaming in through the windows.

Eventually, drawn from the bedroom by rumbling stomachs and the need for a beer, they made their way downstairs to the restaurant, a light, airy room with an enormous stone fireplace at one end, and a series of windows that overlooked the river that wound its way down the valley. After lingering over a very fine meal, they retired to the terrace in front of the hotel to watch a spectacular sunset, equipped with two large – and excellent – Armagnacs. They weren’t the only guests doing the same thing. At the next table, two women in their early 60s were enjoying coffee and liquors. Stephen had heard them talking as they’d entered the dining room and knew that they were from somewhere on the Sussex coast. They were dressed as casually as he and Ryan were and from the small touches and looks he’d watched them exchange, it was obvious that they were more than just holiday companions.

The elder of the two, her grey hair wound into a loose bun held in place by an attractive spiral of silver wire set with a large moonstone, smiled at him and remarked, “It’s a beautiful spot, isn’t it?”

Stephen smiled and nodded. He extended his hand and she shook it warmly as he embarked on the introductions. “Stephen Hart. This is my partner, Tom Ryan.”

“Ellen Harris.”

“Kathy Morse,” the other woman said. “I’m her better half.”

Ellen snorted. “Yes, dear, of course you are.”

“How long are you here for?” Kathy asked.

“Just a long weekend,” Ryan said. “We flew into Brive yesterday and have got another two days left. Do you know the area well?”

“We’ve been coming here for about ten years. We normally stay in a cottage a little way down the valley, but we both retired this summer, so this is something of a treat by way of celebration.” She smiled fondly at Ellen and they clinked their glasses together.

“Forty years as teachers and neither of us have done time for murder. I’d definitely say that’s cause for a bloody celebration,” Ellen said, pushing a wisp of her unruly hair back behind her ear. “What do you two do for a living?”

“Research assistant,” Stephen supplied. “Evolutionary zoology.”

“Army,” Ryan said.

To Stephen’s surprise, the two women promptly smiled and high-fived each other. In response to his raised eyebrow, Kathy Morse explained, “I had you pegged for an academic of some sort, and we both guessed army.”

“The haircut?” Ryan hazarded.

“The body to die for,” Ellen added, mischief dancing in her shrewd eyes.

Her partner rolled her eyes. “I do apologise, gentleman. All attempts to house-train her have ended in abysmal failure. If she attempts to quiz you on your sex-life, do feel free to change the subject.”

The two women proved to be amusing company as well as an invaluable mine of information on the local attractions. Stephen wanted to see a chateau while they were in the area and the one they’d passed on their ride to St Leon that morning came highly recommended, so it looked like that settled their choice of activity for the following day. And when he mentioned their impromptu swim in the river before lunch, they were given directions to a suitable spot on the small river, the Coly, which ran down the valley to meet the Vezere a few kilometres away. It sounded like it would make a good destination for a pre-breakfast run.

After lingering over another round of drinks, they excused themselves and made their way back upstairs. Stephen was surprisingly tired from a mix of exercise, good food and even better sex. He cuddled up against Ryan in the large, comfortable bed and draped his arm around his lover’s waist.

“Thanks for a lovely day, Tom.”

Ryan answered him with a gentle, brandy-tasting kiss. Their tongues tangled together lazily and they made love slowly and unhurriedly, the raw urgency of earlier in the day replaced by a quiet giving and taking of pleasure that drew Stephen inexorably to an equally intense climax.

With his head pillowed on Ryan’s shoulder in a bedroom bathed in silver moonlight, Stephen finally gave up the attempt to prolong the best birthday he’d ever had and drifted off into sleep.


	4. Chapter 4

In spite of the heat they’d experienced the previous day, the early morning air in the valley was distinctly cool, although a clear blue sky promised warmth for later. Stephen set off at a brisk pace along the track behind the hotel, his long legs covering the ground with ease. Ryan kept up with him without a problem, matching his lover stride for stride, his breathing slow and steady.

Ryan could run for hours if necessary, his muscles honed by years of training in the unforgiving landscape of the Brecon Beacons, but that morning they were aiming to go no further than the pool described to them by the two women they’d had drinks with on the terrace the night before. The track wound along the valley bottom, with a steep tree-covered slope rising to their right and fields of tall golden maize to the left between them and the river. Dew sparkled on myriad spiders’ webs on the wooded slope and as they left the crops behind and passed a wide swathe of grass, Ryan noticed two small deer standing by the water’s edge, ears pricked, alert for any danger.

The track led them across a small road and through a hamlet, before snaking slightly higher up the side of valley and narrowing to a small stony path then dropping down again to the side of the river. They reached an obvious fork in the track and Stephen took the lower route, following the directions they’d been given. As they entered the trees clustered on the river bank, the track broadened again and soon led them to a large, deep pool, over-shadowed by the trees, with the morning sunlight dappling attractively on the surface of the water.

At 6.30 in the morning, Ryan very much doubted there would be anyone around to be scandalised by their lack of clothes as he and Stephen stripped quickly beside the river.

“It’ll be bloody cold,” he commented.

Ryan grinned. “I’m sure I’ll find a way of warming you up afterwards.”

“I’ll hold you to that, soldier boy.” Stephen dipped one foot in the water, yelped but slid quickly in and set off across the pool. At the far side where the water was clearly shallower, he stood up and turned around, the water dripping off his naked body. “It’s bloody gorgeous,” he called, before duck-diving back into the water and setting off back in Ryan’s direction.

Ryan dived in after him. The water was cold enough to make him gasp as it slid over his skin like freezing cold silk. Apart from a few leaves, the pool was clear of any debris and unspoilt by rubbish. Ryan could see shoals of small fish darting away in all directions as he swam over to meet Stephen.

“Bloody cold is an understatement, sweetie,” he commented, pulling Stephen into a kiss. “Fucking freezing is more like it.”

Stephen laughed and slid his arms around Ryan’s body as the pair of them trod water. “I didn’t want to risk putting you off.”

“Hart, you were naked and wet, there wasn’t much risk of me being put off, but you’re going to have to work hard for me to get it up in these conditions.”

Stephen’s blue eyes glinted with mischief and he slid below the surface of the water to take Ryan’s cock in his mouth. The contrast between the cold of the water and Stephen’s hot mouth triggered another gasp, hastily cut off as Ryan started to sink. Stephen was not noted for playing fair in the water, and he could hold his breath for longer than Ryan could.

After briefly teasing Ryan with his mouth, Stephen twisted in the water like an eel and swam off, with Ryan in pursuit. After ten minutes swimming lengths of the pool, Ryan took advantage of a shaft of sunlight shining down through the trees and heaved himself up onto one of the small cascades in the middle of the stream, enjoying the feel of the warmth on his shoulders and back. Stephen swam lazily back to him and stood up, the water no higher than his waist as he positioned himself between Ryan’s legs and started to lick the water off his nipples.

Ryan ran his hands through Stephen’s hair, making it stand up in dark, wet spikes. His lover trailed hot kisses down Ryan’s body and then started to suck his cock again. Ryan was about to point out that he had little or no chance of getting an erection with his arse and balls still in freezing cold water when his dick sent a very clear message to the contrary and started to respond to Stephen’s ministrations.

Stephen chucked around his mouthful and started to suck harder as his hands roamed freely across the skin of Ryan’s back, his nails raking lightly over Ryan’s flesh as his lips and tongue continued to work their usual magic. There was something intoxicating in watching Stephen suck his cock out in the open, next to an obviously well-used path, where any early-morning runner or dog-walker could see them, and soon any thought of listening for approaching footsteps was driven out of Ryan’s mind as he felt heat course through his body, pooling low in his belly. He gasped, thrusting up into Stephen’s mouth as he came, and then found himself being tugged back into the water as Stephen kissed him breathlessly, sharing Ryan’s taste with him.

Ryan’s hands dropped down between Stephen’s legs and found him hot and hard. Sliding his hands up to his lover’s waist, Ryan hoisted him up out of the water onto the top of the small waterfall and proceeded to return the favour, managing to take Stephen quickly to the edge of orgasm and hold him there until a decidedly needy whine escaped Stephen’s kiss-swollen lips. Ryan nudged his lover’s thighs further apart and stroked his balls. That was enough to trigger a warm rush of thick, salty fluid into his mouth. Ryan swallowed and slid back up Stephen’s cock, his tongue swiping the last drops of come from his slit.

Ryan had to admit that although the water was freezing, the pool was certainly one of the most picturesque spots they’d made love in for quite a while and he had a strong feeling they’d be heading the same way the following morning as well.

By the time they started on their way back to the hotel, the sun was already warming the valley and promising a hot day ahead. After a quick shower, they were soon ready for breakfast on the terrace.

“Fancy some more culture later?” Stephen asked as they tucked into a pile of warm croissants.

“It’s your birthday weekend,” Ryan said. He was happy to spend the time however Stephen wanted. He’d been surprised by how much he’d enjoyed the visit to the replica cave the previous day, and the idea of a tour around a chateau sounded interesting, even if it wasn’t how they normally spent their off-duty hours.

Stephen smiled like a kid who’d been handed everything he wanted in the world, neatly gift-wrapped. “We’ll do the chateau this morning and then have lunch somewhere and then maybe have a wander around in Montignac. How does that sound?”

Ryan ran the backs of his fingers lightly Stephen’s cheek. “It sounds perfect. Have I told you recently how much I love you?”

“Not since I was sucking your cock in bed at half past five this morning.”

“How very romantic of me,” Ryan said, brushing a flake of croissant off the side of Stephen’s mouth.

Stephen grinned. “That’s what I thought.” In spite of his smile, Stephen’s face took on a serious expression for a moment. “Tom, you know I’m crap at saying what I really feel, but this weekend has been the best birthday I’ve ever had.” He lifted Ryan’s hand and pressed a soft kiss into his palm. “Thank you. And I love you too.”

Ryan’s tightened his fingers around Stephen’s hand. Even after all the time they’d been together, those words still felt immeasurably special. Ryan smiled. Stephen wasn’t the only one who was enjoying the weekend.

* * * * *

The chateau was partially hidden from the road by a row of tall fir trees, but as Ryan and Stephen turned into a wide driveway flanked by more trees, they had a perfect view of an imposing structure with tall towers and high, steep roofs warmed by the mid-morning sun.

A woman sitting outside a small ticket booth took their money and told them that the next tour would start in 45 minutes from the courtyard inside the outer wall. Until then they were free to explore the formal gardens. She handed them an explanatory booklet in English and wished them a bonne visite.

Ryan’s trained eyes promptly admired the deep dry moat flanking the castle on three sides, with the fourth protected by the Vézère river. According to the guidebook, the original stronghold had been built in the 11th century by the Losse family from Flanders and the chateau they were about to see had been largely unaltered since the 16th century. The sole access was over a bridge across the moat, guarded by what was apparently the largest fortified gatehouse in France.

They leaned on the stone wall and stared down into the moat. It had been hacked out of the bedrock and would have provided a perfect killing-ground for use by the castle’s defenders in times of war. Any attackers would be lucky to cross it alive and even if they succeeded, the outer walls would still have had to be scaled. Not an easy task, even with ladders.

They strolled slowly around the outer defences and down into the moat itself to admire the view out over the water of the Vézère, which was flowing faster there than it had done at their swimming spot the previous day, a few kilometres further down stream. They watched some ducks swimming up against the current and saw a heron diving for fish. A party of canoeists waved as they paddled lazily past, allowing the river to do most of the work.

“Fancy taking a canoe out later?” Stephen asked, looping his arm around Ryan’s waist and resting his head on Ryan’s shoulder.

“Mmm,” Ryan murmured, taking the opportunity to press a kiss into Stephen’s hair. “You can do the paddling and I can admire your sun-tan.”

“Not quite what I had in mind, sweetheart,” Stephen laughed. “It’s my birthday weekend, so I get to do the ogling.”

After walking around the moat, they made their way back up into the formal gardens, wandering between tall, immaculately-clipped hedges and listening to the low drone of insects clustering on the sweetly-scented lavender, flanked by rosemary and other herbs. A woman with a small Pekinese at her heels passed by, smiling. The dog sniffed their ankles and dispensed a haughty look.

From the voices they heard as they wandered around the garden, there were almost as many English visitors as there were French and at a distance, Ryan saw their two drinking companions from the hotel the previous night, heading down into the moat. Kathy Morse looked up, saw them and waved.

The sound of high-pitched yapping from the direction of the ornamental garden disturbed the peace. Ryan guessed that the small dog had probably encountered one of the Labradors they’d just passed.

“Has no one told him to pick on someone his own size?” Stephen commented.

“Our next door neighbour had one of those when I was a kid. The bloody thing would take on something ten times its size and still win. The whole street was a no-go area for the postman whenever Pookie escaped.”

“Pookie?”

Ryan nodded. “Yep. Pookie. She adored that dog. Rumour had it she had the critter stuffed when he finally went to the Great Kennel in the Sky so she could keep him on the mantelpiece.”

The barking reached a crescendo of fury, accompanied by an even louder scream.

Ryan looked at Stephen who shrugged then nodded. The pair of them broke into a run. They’d heard enough screams in their job to enable them to recognise the distinctive edge of fear. Others sightseeing in the gardens turned their heads to the source of the noise but made no move towards it, held back by the characteristic embarrassment that seemed to paralyse people when something unusual happened. There were times when Ryan wondered if it was actually some kind of in-built inhibition that kicked in to keep people from running headlong into trouble – apart from where the bloody anomalies were concerned. But human beings, like magpies, were unfortunately also programmed to like bright, shiny things and Ryan had a very distinct feeling that a bright, shiny thing might well be the root of the problem.

The person doing the screaming was a stout Frenchwoman wearing a billowing floral print dress. Something had obviously grabbed hold of the hem and ripped a long strip around the bottom. The material was flapping gaily in the light breeze. From the blood that Ryan could see on her lower leg, whatever had been responsible for the damage to the dress had also left behind a long, red gouge in the woman’s flesh.

The Pekinese was nowhere to be seen, but Ryan could still hear it expressing its dislike of whatever had hurt its mistress.

“C’était un chien?” Ryan asked, looking around for the culprit.

The woman shook her head vehemently. “Non, c’est un énorme poulet!”

A big chicken? Ryan had seen a lot of ducks and geese in the area, but no unusually large chickens, and he was willing to bet that the woman, in common with most of her compatriots, could tell a chicken from a goose at ten paces and judging by the gash on the woman’s leg, this one had been a lot closer to her than that.

“Asseyez-vous, madame, permettez-moi de regarder votre jambe,” Ryan put his arm around the woman’s ample waist and tried to guide her to one of the garden seats.

“I’ll see what the dog’s up to,” Stephen said, clearly more than happy to leave Ryan to deal with the injured woman as more people started to arrive, their curiosity piqued now that the screaming had stopped.

The gash in the woman’s leg was shallow but bleeding profusely. With a muttered apology, Ryan caught hold of her dress and pulled at the piece that was already hanging off. The sheer size of the dress was useful and a moment later, Ryan had a long strip of material in his hand. It made a reasonable impromptu bandage until he could get the woman to a proper first aid box.

The noise had attracted the attention of the people at the entry booth. One of them arrived in a flurry of excited French and Ryan gratefully surrendered his charge to her. The words ‘poulet’ and ‘énorme’ were still very much in evidence. The word ‘FrouFrou’ was also appearing with some degree of regularity. Ryan guessed that was the name of the dog.

The dog that was still barking like hell.

“Excusez-moi, madame, j’irai trouver votre chien…”

Ryan made good his escape. He was about at the limit of his French. Barking dogs were far easier to deal with than a French woman in a floral dress who looked much like a galleon in full sail.

He followed the sound of barking through a gap in the neatly clipped hedge and found Stephen and FrouFrou both staring at the creature that had just taken a chunk out of the woman’s leg. She’d been right. It did look like a bloody great big chicken. The bird had a heavy head and a short neck, around which a ruff of black and white feathers was standing up like the hackles on a dog.

FrouFrou was standing in front of it, barking loudly, his own hackles raised.

The bird took a swipe at the dog with its wicked-looking beak. The Pekinese backed off rapidly, still barking and then dived back in with a deceptive turn of speed. Its sharp teeth nipped the bird’s leg in retaliation and for a moment it looked like 1-0 to FrouFrou, but the bird made another jab at the little dog. FrouFrou yelped but stood his ground. The bird had a tuft of the dog’s fur sticking out of the side of its beak so it seemed the dog hadn’t entirely escaped unscathed, although Ryan couldn’t see any blood.

Stephen bent down to try to pick up the valiant little dog, but FrouFrou avoided his hands and took another run at the bird, yapping his fury to the four winds.

The bird had clearly decided that discretion was indeed the better part of valour. It took one look at the barking dog, FrouFrou’s lips drawn back to reveal sharp white teeth, and suddenly turned tail and fled into the undergrowth. The Pekinese was doing something that looked suspiciously like a victory dance when a rustle in the bushes drew Ryan’s attention.

Something that really did deserve the description of an énorme poulet thrust an even bigger head straight through a magnificent rose bush, sending petals flying everywhere like a spray of blood. A beak that looked capable of scything straight through human flesh and bone flashed in the direction of the Pekinese.

FrouFrou clearly lacked anything resembling a survival instinct. The dog dodged, but didn’t retreat.

The Pekinese stood its ground as both Ryan and Stephen jumped back.

The bird was easily two metres high at the shoulder, towering massively above its opponent. Glossy black and while feathers were fluffed out making it look even bigger, not that it needed to add to the mantle of menace that already surrounded it.

Ryan didn’t know what the hell the creature was or where it had come from, but he had a nasty feeling he was about to find out. Stephen’s muttered comment of “Fuck!” just about summed the situation up.

And Ryan wasn’t looking forward to telling the Frenchwoman that her beloved FrouFrou had just been eaten by something that looked like a body-building ostrich. He looked around for a weapon and drew a blank. There wasn’t even a stick he could use to distract the bird with.

“Time to make a tactical withdrawal, Hart,” Ryan said, slipping easily back into work mode.

He had to admit that he hadn’t expected their short break to turn into this much of a busman’s holiday.


	5. Chapter 5

Stephen was well aware of the fact that running away from something that looked like a giant chicken on steroids wasn’t exactly the high point of his career as a dinosaur hunter, but the devil was very much in the driving seat at that moment.

With a muttered apology in schoolboy French, Stephen grabbed an elderly man by the shoulders and turned him around, hopefully convincing him that tangling with a black and white-feathered monstrosity wasn’t a good idea.

The man took one look at their pursuer, exclaimed, “Putain de merde!” then handed his walking stick to Stephen and said something else that he didn’t understand. But the offer of the stick was good enough for him.

Ryan had clearly had the same idea on the subject of improvised weapons and had also appropriated a walking stick from someone.

“Prenez les femmes et les enfants à sécurité,” Ryan said to the man who had just handed his stick to Stephen. He pointed to the car park. “Prenez une voiture!”

The man nodded. “J'étais dans l'armée,” he offered in return.

Stephen didn’t need a translation of that phrase. It looked like they’d gained an ally.

He turned just in time to see the giant bird appear in a gap in the tall neatly-trimmed box hedge. Quite what they could do armed with nothing more than a pair of walking sticks wasn’t entirely clear but a poke in the eye with a sharp stick might just slow the creature down.

Brandishing the walking stick like a fencing foil – and feeling mildly ridiculous – Stephen jumped out of the way of another strike from the wicked-looking beak. The bird had a habit of squawking before it struck, which was helpful as tells went, but that appeared to be its only weakness. The bird was inhumanly fast and Stephen only barely escaped the beast laying open his arm to the bone. A second slash of the beak took a good six inches off the bottom of the walking stick.

Ryan dodged to one side and dropped to the ground, taking his weight on one hand and scything both feet at the bird’s legs in the hope of bringing it to the ground. He caught their attacker unawares as both feet slammed hard into the back of its legs. As it stumbled, Stephen jumped forwards, trying to slam the steel-shod end of the blackthorn cane into the bird’s face. He only managed to catch it a glancing blow, but it was enough to confuse the creature and combined with the kick to its legs, the bird stumbled and fell in an inelegant heap of ruffled feathers.

Stephen could hear voices in both French and English calling out and it seemed their friend the former soldier, had started an evacuation, at least of the area around the gardens, but they were still lacking in any means of neutralising Big Bird. Stephen was putting his money on the creature being a gastornis, a huge, flightless bird that had lived during the Paleocene, the epoch that had followed the mass extinction of the dinosaurs at the end of the Cretaceous. Knowing that didn’t help much, but it did point to the fact that there was almost certainly an open anomaly in the vicinity, as he very much doubted that the bird was part of a foie gras breeding programme. But in a region so devoted to the product, they’d better hope the local farmers didn’t set eyes on this visitor.

A high-pitched squawk from behind the hedge attracted the gastornis’ attention and it scrambled to its taloned feet, its quarrel with Stephen and Ryan apparently forgotten, for the moment at least. With an answering, but more deep-throated squawk, the creature barrelled through the rose garden, sending a spray of petals flying into the air.

Ryan leaned on the walking stick he was carried and muttered, “That sounded suspiciously like ‘Yes, dear, mummy’s coming.’”

Stephen pulled a face at his damaged stick. “We need better weapons.”

Ryan glanced in the direction of the chateau. “I have a feeling I know where we can get some.”

Side by side, they sprinted away from the garden, herding some stragglers in front of them. Stephen could hear car engines revving, so it looked liked Ryan’s suggestion was being adopted, at least by some of the visitors. The screech of tyres on the gravelled driveway meant that at least they now had fewer people to worry about.

Stephen wondered what sort of response teams the French had for anomalies and the memory of the green-uniformed soldiers from the previous day sprang to mind. He hoped there was some means of alerting them to the appearance of one of the rips in time. The way into the main chateau was over a bridge spanning the wide, deep dry moat. They ran across it and underneath a massive gatehouse, heading towards an imposing building. Some of the windows in the chateau were open and Stephen could hear the sound of screaming coming from inside the building. Light appeared to be dancing behind one of the windows in the upper floor, sparkling like sun on water.

“Shit!” Ryan exclaimed, spotting the same thing at the same time. “There’s one inside as well.”

“Let’s hope it’s not between us and some weapons,” Stephen said as he hauled open a large wooden door. He waved his hand into the cool interior. “After you.”

Ryan gave a small bow. “Enchanté, monsieur.”

They found themselves at the foot of a wide, wooden staircase. The sound of hurrying footsteps coming towards them down a corridor showed that someone had had the presence of mind to start evacuating the party that had been engaged in a tour of the chateau while the next set of visitors entertained themselves in the ornamental gardens. Visitors of various nationalities – French, English, Dutch and German – judging by the languages Stephen could decipher pushed and jostled each other to get to the door first. It was disorderly, but not yet a total rout, and Stephen was pleased to see that the children in the group were being taken care of.

Ryan grabbed the arm of a man who was holding a young boy firmly by the hand. “What’s going on?”

If the man was surprised to be addressed in English, it didn’t show.

“Some sort of bloody great big ball of lightning appeared in one of the rooms. It’s giving off a magnetic field and a few people lost cameras and phones, then a huge turkey or something dashed out and bloody nearly took someone’s arm off.” He glanced down at his son, and said, more quietly, “It grabbed a woman and dragged her into the middle of the light. Someone tried to follow, but I don’t know what happened after that. I wanted to get my wife and kids out of there.”

A woman who was presumably his wife had a toddler balanced on one hip. “Geoff, come on!” Her voice was pleading and she clearly didn’t want to be separated from her husband by the press of people sweeping her inexorably towards the doorway.

The man called Geoff shot Ryan and Stephen an apologetic look and hurried after his wife.

The last woman down the stairs was doing her best to stay calm, calling out alternately in French and English, “Please assemble in the car park, this is a fire drill!”

Stephen gave her full marks for trying to stop a panic, but her words weren’t having much effect. He could still hear screaming from down the corridor, so it was obvious that the evacuation had by no means been totally successful.

Ryan stepped out in front of her, and demanded in a parade-ground voice, “Où sont les armes?”

The woman shot him a startled look, but responded to the obvious authority in Ryan’s voice. She pointed to a door, and Stephen could see that her hand was shaking. “Dans la salle... là-bas.”

Another scream, this time a child’s, came from the floor above them, and acting on impulse, Stephen was about to make his way down the corridor as fast as possible, when Ryan grabbed his arm.

“Hart, no, we need weapons, don’t be an idiot.”

Stephen hesitated for a moment, even though he could see the sense in Ryan’s words, it went against the grain to run away from the sound of screaming, not towards it. But his lover was right, they needed more than a couple of walking sticks to mount an effective defence against the gastornis and whatever else the anomalies had just disgorged. He turned and followed Ryan down a set of wide stone steps into a basement room, cool and rather dimly lit. From what he’d seen, the French had a touching faith in the adequacy of 40 watt light bulbs, and this room was no exception. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realised they were surrounded by racks and racks of weapons, all more suited to medieval warfare rather than dealing with prehistoric creatures, but beggars certainly couldn’t be choosers.

He took one look at the huge broadswords designed to be swung two-handed and promptly went in search of something lighter. A basket-hilted rapier of Italian design caught his eye and he took it down from the wall, hefting its weight in his hand to get a feel for the weapon. It was perfectly balanced, as a couple of practice swings quickly proved.

“You need something for distance work as well,” Ryan commented and tossed a long spear over to him.

Stephen caught it in his left hand. Ryan was right. Distance was good, especially when it related to something out of an anomaly. The spear had a long, leaf-shaped blade with a cross-piece just below the head, designed to stop an enraged animal working its way up the shaft to attack the hunter. They’d also become popular weapons of war due to the ease with which the side wings could be used to yank an enemy’s shield out of his hands. He was unlikely to be facing anything with a shield today, but the other function could end up being useful.

He tucked the boar-spear under his arm and carefully pushed the sword through his belt. Ryan did the same with a somewhat heavier-looking blade. His lover was clearly backing weight over finesse on this occasion. He saw Ryan cast a regretful look at a vicious morning star, its three spiked balls dangling from the end of short lengths of chain attached to a sturdy wooden handle, before the soldier shot him a questioning look and, in response to Stephen’s nod, took the stairs up to the ground floor at a run.

Stephen followed, making sure he didn’t end up ignominiously tripping over his sword on the way. The long corridor opened into an impressive room, panelled in wood and hung with enormous floor-to-ceiling tapestries. An imposing dark oak table ran almost the whole length of the room. It looked like the anomaly had opened into the main dining hall in the chateau. A stone fireplace dominated one end of the room or rather it would have done if the anomaly that had opened inside it hadn’t been something of a scene stealer.

The screaming was coming from a boy of about 13, hiding behind a chair and doing his best to fend off a small gastornis with a heavy cast-iron poker he’d obviously snatched up from beside the fireplace. Stephen gave the kid full marks for commonsense and improvisation. Even the screaming seemed to be doing some good, as a combination of the noise and the poker seemed to be keeping one of the enormous flightless birds at bay.

“Time the nasty little fucker went home,” Ryan said quietly.

Stephen nodded. With the spears held in front of them, they advanced in step with each other. The gastornis gave an enraged squawk at something having the temerity to come between it and its prey and took a swipe at the spear. The hardened wood withstood the sharp beak and Stephen’s spear did more than ruffle a few feathers.

The bird jumped back, pain and anger jostling for precedence in its cry.

Ryan took advantage of its confusion and pressed home his own attack. His spear took the gastornis in the chest. Wounded, the bird pulled back, turned and promptly fled into the anomaly, which was exactly what they’d been hoping for.

The boy came out from behind the chair, his eyes wide with amazement.

“Comment vous appelez-vous?” Ryan demanded.

“Kevin, and I’m English,” the boy replied in a broad Black Country accent.

“So are we,” Stephen said. “Nice to meet you, Kevin.”

“I know,” Kevin said, staring at the weapons they were carrying. “I heard you swearing.”

“We do that a lot,” Ryan said. “We’ve been told that the birds dragged someone through that…” He gestured to the anomaly.

Kevin nodded. “A woman wearing a big straw hat.”

Stephen stared around the room. “Where are your parents, Kevin?” What he really wanted to know was what the hell they were playing at leaving their son behind, even in the midst of all the chaos.

“I’m here with my godmother, but they don’t let dogs in the chateau, so she stayed outside in the gardens.”

Stephen correctly interpreted the look on Ryan’s face as the soldier hefted the spear in his hand and took a step towards the anomaly. “Ryan, no, we can’t just go charging through there. We need to wait for back-up.”

“And the woman they’ve taken will be dead by then.”

“She might be dead already…” He knew perfectly well that his argument was falling on deaf ears but he had to at least make the attempt to reason with his lover.

“Then it’ll be a short trip,” Ryan countered. “If anything comes through, make sure it doesn’t get the chance to do any damage.”

“I’m coming with you.” Ryan wasn’t the only one capable of being stubborn.

Before his lover had a chance to argue, Stephen stepped up to the anomaly, turning to add, “Stay behind the chair, Kevin, we’ll be back in a few minutes. If any more birds come through, just try to stay out of sight.”

Kevin nodded and gripped his iron poker hard.

From the way the some long iron spoons hanging from hooks around the fireplace were straining towards the anomaly, Stephen presumed that the magnetic field was still strong. He took a deep breath and stepped into the anomaly.

A clear blue sky and gently rolling grasslands with a few scattered trees greeted Stephen’s eyes. He blinked in the light, looking around for any potential threats.

He could see several of the gastornis having what looked like a squabble over a body lying on the ground. The birds seemed to be fighting over their prey, with two of the largest birds unwilling to relinquish their prize. The others, including several of the young birds, circled around, looking for an opportunity to dive in and grab some food.

About 200 metres away, a second anomaly sparked in the light, presumably the one that had opening into the gardens. While he watched, a third anomaly winked into existence, disconcertingly close to another group of gastornis.

Next to him, Ryan swore under his breath. For some reasons, a small cluster of anomalies had been generated. If Connor had been here he would no doubt be itching to collect as much data as possible, but for now all Stephen and Ryan wanted to do was rescue the woman – if she was still alive – and get her back to the 21st century.

Stephen picked up a rock and threw it hard at the flock of gastornis. It struck one of them on the back and caused a loud squawk. The bird turned to one of its companions and lashed out with its beak, sending feathers flying. A moment later, Stephen realised that the squabble they’d been witnessing involved the bird that he’d struck with the boar spear, drawing blood. It seemed that the gastornis didn’t have much of a community spirit as it looked like they’d been attacking the injured bird, as well as the woman.

Ryan grabbed another rock and lobbed it into the middle of the rapidly growing melee. “If we run at them we’ll have the element of surprise on our side.”

“Usual drill?” Stephen asked.

Ryan nodded.

The usual drill meant yelling loudly. It worked. The birds scattered in surprise, stubby wings flapping and feathers puffed up. They reminded Stephen of giant versions of the geese they had seen on their forays out into the French countryside. Peaceful one moment and alarmed and noisy the next, especially if a stranger went too close.

While Ryan stood guard, jabbing his spear at any gastornis that made the mistake of coming too close, Stephen dropped his weapon and knelt on the dusty earth. The woman had curled into a defensive ball but from the quiet whimpering noises he could hear, she was still alive. He rolled her onto her back, not know whether to speak to her in French or English. She uncurled slightly and stared up at him out of terrified eyes set in a dirty, bloodied face.

“What are those things?” she asked.

That answered that question. She was English.

“Genetically modified ostriches,” Stephen lied. “Where are you hurt?”

“My arm and my leg.”

Stephen could see that there was a large tear in one sleeve and blood streaming down her arm. It looked like the gastornis has taken a chunk out of her upper arm. Probably only the adrenaline coursing through her system was stopping the woman breaking down complete.

“Come on, we can’t hang around here.” Stephen took her other arm and hauled her to her feet. Ryan wasn’t likely to be able to keep the irate birds at bay for much longer.

The woman yelled in pain as her legs took her weight. Her left trouser leg was in tatters and it looked like she had several more wounds to her leg. Stephen pulled her good arm around his shoulder and said to Ryan, “Cover me.”

Ryan picked up the spear he’d dropped and with one weapon held in each hand, he kept jabbing at their attackers as Stephen retreated to the anomaly with the injured woman.

By the time they stumbled back into the Great Hall at the chateau, Stephen was barely able to keep her upright. To his relief, Ryan was only seconds behind them. Stephen noticed that his spear point was bloody. It was clear that his retreat to the anomaly hadn’t been without incident.

“One of them wouldn’t take no for an answer,” Ryan said grimly. He looked down at the woman, now crumpled on the floor. “We need to get her out of here. I’m not sure how long the bloody things are going to play nicely and stay put. “What’s your name, madam?”

“Janice,” she gasped. “It hurts and I’m bleeding!”

“We’ll get you to safety, Janice,” Ryan said. His tone was calm and reassuring. “I’m Ryan and this is Stephen.” He glanced around and saw Kevin appearing from behind the chair, still clutching his poke. “And this is Kevin.”

The boy smiled and did his best to appear unafraid.

Stephen was worried about the amount of blood the woman was losing from the gash in her leg. The gastornis hadn’t severed an artery, as if it had, she would have bled out by now, but he needed to stop the blood loss if he could. He pulled his teeshirt over his head and wadded it up into a pad and pressed it against her leg.

“Kevin, I need your belt.”

The boy acted quickly and pulled a leather belt out of the loops in his jeans. Stephen used that to hold the blood-soaked pad in place.

“We need something to carry her on,” Kevin said, demonstrating quick wits. He looked at one of the many tapestries hanging on the walls. “Will that do?”

Ignoring the fact that the wall hangings were probably worth a king’s ransom, Stephen nodded. Kevin hauled one of the smaller ones off the wall and laid it on the floor while Stephen and Ryan did their best to manoeuvre the injured woman onto it. Stephen could see now that she had multiple injures all over her body, not just on her arms and legs.

Ryan handed his spear to Kevin and took up the front corners of the makeshift stretcher and Stephen was just about to get into position at the rear when a loud screech told him that one of the gastornis had decided to follow them through the anomaly.

“The floors are level,” Stephen said. “Drag her out while I run interference.”

The look on Ryan’s face told him he wasn’t happy with that suggestion, but there was no time for an argument. He started to tow the woman out of the room, turning the tapestry into a makeshift travois, with Kevin following behind, his poker abandoned in favour of Ryan’s spear.

“Shut the door!” Stephen called as they made their way out of the room. “I don’t want this thing getting past me and coming after you.”

The gastornis lunged at him. Stephen jabbed at it with the spear and then side-stepped, manoeuvring around an ornate chair. The huge oak table was now at his back and on impulse, Stephen jumped up onto it, taking advantage of his the extra height to enable him to thrust down at the bird. But the gastornis was agile and fast. It evaded his thrusts and sprang up onto the end of the table, its sharp claws tapping on the wood as it stalked towards Stephen along the polished oak. He lunged at it with the spear, hoping that the attack would unbalance his opponent.

His hopes were doomed to crash and burn and the bird side-stepped neatly and closed its beak around the shaft of the spear. With one shake of its powerful head, the gastornis succeeded in wrenching the weapon out of Stephen’s hand and throwing it to the floor.

It lunged again.

Stephen jumped up, catching hold of the large, ornate chandelier, hoisting his legs up out of the way of the bird’s attack. He bunched up his legs and used his weight to swing the chandelier back and then forwards. The creature looked up, wanting to know where its quarry had gone. At that moment, Stephen kicked out with both feet, swinging towards the irate gastornis. He caught it in the head and bowled the bird over, send it crashing to the floor.

The sound of clapping came from the doorway.

Stephen dropped lightly back onto the oak table.

“You make a most convincing Errol Flynn, Dr Hart.” Capitaine Etienne Lafarge stood in the doorway with a weapon that Stephen didn’t recognise held to his shoulder, pointing at the gastornis. “My grandmother would love to meet you, I’m sure. I would, however, advise caution. She has been married seven times already.”

The gastornis got back to its feet and stared up at Stephen malevolently. It lunged and he jumped up again, grabbing at the chandelier for a second time and hoping that the ornate plasterwork on the ceiling would continue to bear his weight.

A crackle in the air like static electricity cut over the sound of the bird’s battle cry and the animal jumped as though a charge had gone through it, its limbs shaking like a giant puppet master was tugging on its strings. The French special forces captain lowered his weapon and stared dispassionately as the gastornis twitched violently and then collapsed in a pile of feathers.

“Might I suggest we take this opportunity to leave?” Lafarge said in his almost accentless English.

“What the hell is that?” Stephen said, staring at the bulky black rifle in the man’s hands.

The Frenchman smiled. “There will be time for explanations later, I promise. In the meantime, please gather your weapons. We still have civilians to evacuate and I am sure it is too much to hope for that you and Captain Ryan will join them.” The man’s smile became somewhat wolfish. “Our friend over there will not awaken for some time, and when he does, making sport of civilians will not be the foremost thought in whatever passes for his brain. Come, let us go a-hunting together.”

Lafarge stood aside to allow Stephen through the door.

Even up close, Stephen didn’t recognise the weapon the man was carrying, but he was itching for a better look.

It looked very much like the ARC was not the only organisation with experience of dealing with the anomalies.


	6. Chapter 6

Stephen cast a last look back at the prone gastornis. Captain Lafarge was right. The bird didn’t look like it would wake up any time soon but as a precaution, he closed the door. The creatures were strong, but even if more came through the open anomaly, there was no way they would succeed in getting through a solid oak door.

Lafrage made his way back to the courtyard at a run with Stephen hard on his heels. As he emerged into the strong sunlight, Stephen could hear shouting and screaming in several languages. He could identify French and English amongst the babble, but that was all. The French special forces soldiers were getting their own way in the time-honoured manner by dint of shouting loudly and shoving people in the direction they wanted them to go. No one seemed to want to argue with a bunch of burly men wearing dark green combats and bulky equipment vests, and carrying large and somewhat futuristic-looking weapons.

He could see one of the terror birds in the middle of the courtyard, one of its taloned feet pawing at the gravel like a racehorse eager to be out of the traps.

The French captain lifted his rifle to his shoulder and fired. The bird squawked loudly as it was knocked off its feet by an invisible force. Lafarge drew a smaller version of the weapon out of a holster on his left thigh and walked over to the twitching creature and fired again, this time at the back of its neck. The bird jerked once and then was still.

Stephen watched in amazement. It appeared the French had developed a non-lethal method of dealing with visitors from the past. His best guess was that it was some kind of taser. He just hoped they wouldn’t take an only child attitude to sharing. The weapons weren’t toys, and wielded by experts, which these men clearly were, they made an impressive short-range alternative to conventional weapons. He knew several people, starting with Abby, who would give a lot to get their hands on something like that.

Lafarge holstered the pistol and smiled at Stephen. “It will be up to my lords and masters in our government whether they are prepared to share our technology.” He jerked his head to the impressive gatehouse over the moat. “I suggest we ascertain what progress is being made with the evacuation.”

As they jogged across the courtyard, Stephen said, “Do you have a means of detecting the anomalies when they appear?”

The Frenchman shot him a quizzical look. “Do you?”

Stephen smiled. “It will be up to my lord and master to decide whether to answer that question.”

“Touché,” Lafarge murmured.

They reached the gatehouse and from there could see cars being driven out of the car park.

“This will be all over the internet as soon as some of the younger ones start emailing the pictures they’ve taken on their phones,” he commented.

“The road is cordoned off in both directions,” Lafarge replied. “They’re going nowhere until my colleague in public relations has spun an appropriate tale and confiscated their phones and cameras. But as long as they are not still within the grounds, they are not my problem at the moment.”

Stephen couldn’t help grinning. Ryan held very similar views on the subject of their dealings with the general public, much to Claudia’s occasional chagrin. He was impressed to see that an ambulance was driving at a suitably French speed down the small access road. It came to a halt in a spray of gravel and two paramedics promptly took charge of the woman they’d hauled back through the anomaly. Ryan saw Stephen watching and raised his hand in salute. Next to him, Kevin brandished his spear, the sunlight glinting off its bloodied tip. The boy looked like he was having the time of his life.

A familiar squawk drew his attention to the deep, dry moat that surrounded the château on three sides. Stephen looked down to see one of the French soldiers in hot pursuit of a gastornis. The bird appeared to be steadfastly refusing to stay still long enough to give the man a clear shot. The pair of them disappeared from sight around the corner. The chances were that the man would catch up with it at the end of the gully.

A moment later, however, the pair appeared but in a somewhat different order. The soldier had underestimated the strength of the bird’s beak and its agility. He had now taken to his heels and the pursued had now become the pursuer, with the man’s rifle held firmly in its beak.

Lafarge exchanged glances with Stephen and gave a very Gallic shrug. “What can I say?” The French captain said in mock-apology. Stephen couldn’t see the man’s eyes behind his anti-flash glasses, but he knew they would be full of mischief.

Lafarge leaned over the wall and sighted his rifle on the rapidly-disappearing bird. He fired once, the bird twitched violently and dropped the rifle from its beak. He fired a second time, and it staggered drunkenly, feathers fluffed up in outrage, and no doubt pain, as the charge ran through its body.

The distraction was enough to allow the soldier it had been chasing to unholster the twin to the pistol Lafarge carried, and a third shot made sure that the bird wouldn’t be getting to its feet in a hurry.

The soldier looked up and gave his captain a salute. The look on the young man’s face reminded Stephen of the expression Finn would often sport during his madder escapades.

A moment later, a scream from the direction of the ornamental garden claimed their attention.

“It seems that not all the visitors have been eager to leave,” Lafarge said, breaking into a run.

Stephen hefted the spear in his hands and followed him. The noise was coming from the far end of the ornamental garden, overlooking the river. He heard a voice yell in English, “No you bloody well don’t! Pick on someone your own size, you ugly bugger!”

He recognised the voice as that of one of their companions on the terrace of the hotel the previous night. As he and Lafarge rounded a corner, Stephen could hear the sound of running feet behind them and knew without needing to look back that Ryan was rapidly catching them up, but it seemed like they were the only ones in this section of the gardens with any weaponry.

The noise of something heavy striking the ground made him wonder what the hell was happening. He ran through a gap in the tall box hedge and found himself facing what looked like an entire flock of gastornis, of varying sizes, some clearly adult, others smaller but equally formidable. It looked like one of the women had managed to lever an enormous ornamental plant pot off the wall and propel it in the direction of one of the larger birds. The weight of the pot had sent ceramic shards and clods of earth flying everywhere, showering the attaching birds.

It looked like the two Englishwomen were shielding a woman holding a baby to her chest. All three of them were backed up against the wall that overlooked the river, with the two older women acting as human shields. Before Stephen and Lafarge had time to react, Ellen Harris had grabbed the baby’s pushchair and swung it hard at the head of the largest gastornis. The bird recoiled, its stubby wings flapping in annoyance as its prey had the temerity to fight back.

Larfarge yelled something in French. Stephen’s command of the language didn’t run to a translation, but he was pretty sure whatever it was hadn’t been very polite.

The words had their desired effect and a couple of the gastornis broke away from the main group and eyed Lafarge with a predatory gleam in their small eyes. Lafarge shot first one, then the other, using his rifle rather than the pistol. Both birds staggered but neither fell. Stephen had no idea how much charge the strange weapons held, but unless Lafarge had lowered the setting, the rifle didn’t seem to be packing quite the same punch as when he’d originally seen it used.

One of the larger birds lunged again at Ellen Harris and managed to snatch the pram from her hands and shake it like a terrier would shake a rat. As improvised weapons went, it was certainly in line for an honourable mention, but it had only served to slow the lead bird down for a minute or two. Kathy Morse let out a yell that wouldn’t have sounded out of place on a parade ground and waved her arms at their attacker, bravely putting herself between the terrified woman and her baby. A vicious slash from its beak painted a long red line on one forearm just as Stephen swung the spear in a wide arc, hitting the gastornis hard on the side of its head.

A moment later, Ryan entered the fray, wielding his own spear to good effect. Keeping the predatory birds alive was clearly not one of Ryan’s priorities and one of the larger birds collapsed in a welter of bloody feathers. Stephen held his own spear like a quarterstaff and used the butt end to deliver a second bone-cracking blow to the head of the bird that had been menacing the women. Its knees buckled and it crumpled to the ground.

Two of the smaller gastoris simply broke and ran, heading back into the ornamental garden. A series of shots from Lafarge’s rifle brought both of them to the ground, and although they were still awake and angry, they were both having trouble regaining their feet and the French captain was able to send them into oblivion with head shots from his pistol.

That left one large bird to contend with.

A sudden volley of barking from the brushes caused heads to turn. The small Pekinese that Stephen thought had earlier fallen victim to one of the birds burst out of a flower bed, white teeth bared. It clearly had a score to settle. The gastornis’ heavy head turned to stare at the new noise and in that moment, Stephen and Ryan jabbed the butts of their spears hard at its body as Lafarge sent shot after shot into its body. The distraction caused by the dog’s low level assault resulted in so much confusion for the bird that it didn’t appear to know where to launch its own retaliatory attack.

With a look of something close to surprise in its eyes, the gastornis finally did the decent thing and collapsed onto the gravel path. The irate Pekinese celebrated its victory by jumping onto the bird’s back and barking even more loudly.

“FrouFrou!”

The dog turned around, gave another bark, and then promptly trotted over to Kevin, who appeared to have done a good job of following Ryan, no doubt despite the best efforts of Lafarge’s men. The boy scooped the dog up in the air and promptly succumbed to having his face licked by an armful of victorious Pekinese.

“A good ally,” Lafarge commented. “There have been suggestions that trained dogs would be of assistance to us, but I suspect something a little larger was envisaged.”

“Size isn’t everything,” Stephen said.

“So they say. Personally, I have always had my doubts on that subject.” Lafarge looked down at the gun in his hand. “I can assure you that the larger version is more effective.”

“Are you going to let us play with your toys, Etienne?” Ryan asked a speculative gleam in his grey eyes.

Lafarge sighed theatrically, and said, “Don’t break it.” He casually tossed the gun to Ryan who caught it in one hand and threw the spear to the Frenchman in return. Lafarge leant it against his shoulder and Stephen had no doubt that the captain would be able to use the antique weapon just as well as he wielded the stun guns, or whatever they are. “Come, may I suggest we escort these ladies and their charge to a secure area and obtain some medical assistance for them?”

Ellen Harris had her arm around the shaking woman whose baby seemed fortunately oblivious to what had gone on around it but she was clearly concerned for the injuries her partner had sustained. Kathy Morse was cradling her left arm, the adrenaline from the fight probably sparing her much of the resultant pain for the moment. It would be a different matter when the adrenaline rush receded.

Stephen pulled his teeshirt over his head and used it to wrap around her forearm. The gash was long, but not deep.

“I’m all right,” she said, although whether the reassurance was for the benefit of the onlookers or herself, Stephen wasn’t wholly sure, especially as she was now starting to shake with reaction.

“You did bloody well, both of you,” he said, staring at the wreckage of the pushchair and the large flower pot.

“I’ve spent more years than I care to remember facing down school kids. It made a pleasant change to be able to hit something.”

Her partner slipped her arm around Kathy’s waist and gave her a slight squeeze. “I think we’ve earned our drinks on the terrace tonight.”

“Is anyone going to tell us what those things are doing here?” Ellen asked as they made their way along the footpath that led to the car park. They’ve been extinct for rather a long time.” At the look of surprise Stephen had clearly failed to suppress, she added, “There’s a dinosaur park down the valley that has some rather good reproductions of something very like these little charmers. Not exactly the same but close enough to be recognisable.” When Stephen failed to offer any explanation, she didn’t look surprised.

Kathy looked at him, the lines on her face betraying the pain from her arm. “If you won’t tell us what’s been going on, you could at least buy the drinks.”

Stephen grinned at her. “It’s a deal.”

That was one promise he’d be very happy to keep.


	7. Chapter 7

"Yes, sir. Thank you.” Ryan finished the call to Lester and slipped the phone back into his pocket. In response to Stephen’s raised eyebrows he said, “Looks like Lester’s going to be brushing up his French. The words ‘duplicitous bastards’ were used at least three times. Apparently there have been rumours floating around in certain circles for a couple of months of something like this over here but when asked, their Ministry of the Interior has always denied it.”

Sprawled out on the bed like the centrefold in a porno mag, Stephen laughed. “Well that’s hardly surprising. If they’d rung the Home Office they’d have been told exactly the same pack of lies.”

“I know,” Ryan said grinning. “But listening to Lester get his knickers in a twist is always good value. He’s going to ring back later.”

“Is that why the old bugger was so obliging about letting us have the leave for this holiday? I presume you did tell him where we were going?”

“Yes, I did, and you’re almost certainly right. I thought he agreed a tad too quickly.” Ryan followed Stephen’s example and quickly divested himself of his clothes. “And we happened to end up in the right place at the right time.”

“Or the wrong place at the wrong time, so far as the French are concerned. I like the look of those weapons, though. A non-lethal alternative gets my vote any day.”

“Etienne said the weak point is the batteries. They have a habit of running out of charge more quickly than they’re meant to. But apart from that, he said their EPMs are pretty effective. He thinks the battery life and reliability can be improved on, and their research teams are working on it.”

“EPMs?”

“Electro perturbateur musculaire. It means something like electro muscular disruptor. Looks like they pretty much do what it says on the tin.”

Ryan had taken down one of the smaller gastornis with the borrowed weapon. The gun had been heavier than a conventional pistol, presumably due to the battery, but there had been no kick to interfere with the speed of delivering a second shock. From what he’d been able to ascertain, their repeat fire capability would hold out as long as the battery lasted, and that depended on the strength of any given shot. The trick seemed to be picking the right setting and not using battery power unnecessarily. There were a number of settings from low to high via numerous points in between. The strength of the remaining charge was displayed by a simple traffic light system. The idea was not to end up in the red with opponents still standing.

Range appeared to be the limiting factor. Over ten metres the pistols were as much use as a fart in a colander. The rifles were effective to 40 metres, but had a limited lifespan before needing a battery change or re-charge and you certainly couldn’t carry spare batteries in an equipment vest. Lafarge had been reasonably close-mouthed about their capabilities, but he had let slip the fact that the largest thing they’d taken down so far was a medium-sized allosaurus. Ryan had been suitably impressed by that feat.

He knew that as soon as Abby and Cutter learnt of the existance of the EPMs they’d want them, and to an extent, he agreed. It gave him no pleasure to have to kill any creature. Killing for sport had never appealed to him and sometimes a creature’s only ‘crime’ was to be too big or too frightened or both to be easily dealt with by peaceful means when human life was at stake. Even if the electrical charge wasn’t enough to immediately incapacitate, it might at least buy them the time to employ other methods as well, and they were certainly more immediate than tranquillisers, which he could see held definitely appeal to Stephen.

“Connor’s going to be in his element if he can get his hands on a new toy,” Stephen commented.

“Then let’s hope that the lure of a means to locate anomalies when they appear is going to be enough to secure some cooperation from this side of the Channel.”

Ryan settled himself on the bed next to Stephen and ran his hand slowly down his lover’s chest, following the light trail of hair that led down to the dark curls at his groin. Stephen’s cock had been hard for at least the last ten minutes and Ryan had had to put up with the demands of his own anatomy throughout the long conversation with Lester. Much as he might have been tempted, Ryan drew the line at wanking while he was talking to his boss.

He ran his fingers lightly down Stephen’s cock, feeling it twitch under his hand. They were both still keyed up from the afternoon’s action and Ryan knew it wouldn’t take long for either of them to find release. Stephen settled comfortably against him, and turned his head so that they could kiss while slowly working each other’s cocks. Ryan quickly felt heat pooling in his groin as his balls tightened and come shot onto Stephen’s stomach. A moment later, Stephen followed suit as they held each other close, breath mingling in the warm air.

Despite the mess and the need for a shower, they drifted into the easy intimacy of sleep, to be awakened some time later by the insistent ring of Ryan’s phone. He grimaced when he saw the caller display. Lester in high dudgeon was enough to bring anyone’s post-coital haze to an abrupt end.

“The French are going to co-operate,” Lester said, without bothering with any conventional greeting. “As you surmised, they’re as keen to get their hands on our technology as we are to obtain their weaponry. I will be speaking to my opposite number as soon as someone can drag him out of his mistress’s arms. In the meantime, our military liaison will be conducted between you and Captain Lafarge. I would be grateful if you would refrain from more than a discussion of the relative merits of conventional versus non-conventional solutions until I’m sure that our friends really do intend to enter into a full and frank show and tell.”

“Understood, sir,” Ryan said when Lester finally paused to draw breath. “I’ve got Lafarge’s mobile number. I imagine they’re still in the area. As far as I could tell, they’ve had a small clutch of anomalies popping up around here.”

“That follows the same pattern we’ve had over here a few times,” Lester commented thoughtfully. “The area is stiff with caves, although as far as I’m aware, there’s no significant concentration of old mine workings. But I’ll get Lyle to do some research.”

“Do you want us to stay on while you talk to the French, sir?” he asked, keeping his voice as bland as possible. “We still have two days holiday left.”

“Yes, Captain, you and Dr. Hart can enjoy the rest of your holiday at taxpayers’ expense. I hope you realise that a harder-hearted man than me would insist you check into somewhere cheaper.”

“You’re all heart, sir, I’ve always said that.”

“As Lyle would say, Ryan, you lie like a cheap carpet. I’ll get Lorraine to rearrange your return flight when I’ve had a call back from the French. In the meantime, you might as well enjoy yourselves, but stay on the other end of a phone.”

Ryan set the phone back down on the bedside table. “That sounded very much like Lester’s just given us permission to put the bar bill on expenses.” He leaned down and gave Stephen a lingering kiss. “And the good news is that we get to stay on for the rest of the holiday and maybe beyond.”

Stephen’s long-lashed blue eyes flew open in surprise. “Bloody hell, he really is mellowing in his old age!”

Ryan held his hand down to Stephen. “Come on, that shower is calling us. Then after that we can buy Ellen and Kathy those drinks we promised them.”

Stephen grinned. “They’ll taste even better if Lester’s paying.”

* * * * *

Ellen Harris and Kathy Morse were already on the terrace by the time Ryan and Stephen got there. The wound on Kathy’s arm had been expertly cleaned and dressed at the hospital in Sarlat and was now held in a white sling across her chest. She looked relaxed and comfortable, as did Ellen. They had a teapot and some cups on the table in front of them, but readily agreed to Stephen’s suggestion that they should also sample the hotel’s house cocktail that he’d seen on the drinks menu.

The cocktail proved to be a surprisingly delicious mixture of mandarin brandy, pineapple juice and sparkling white wine. They sat in the early evening sun, sipping their drinks, clearly all wondering how much of the day’s activities that they could safely discuss.

Eventually, Ellen laughed and said, “Genetically modified ostriches. You have to admit, it’s inventive. I couldn’t understand everything on the form their PR weasel stuffed in front of us, but I suspect we’ve both ended up signing the French equivalent of the Official Secrets Act.”

Ryan had heard worse cover stories in his time on the anomaly project. And from what he’d seen of the region, the idea of confit de gastornis had no doubt already occurred to someone. If his men had been involved, someone – probably Finn – would have come up with the idea of a barbeque to make use of the two birds they’d had no alternative than to kill. The rest had been taken back through the two anomalies, one within the gardens and the other inside the chateau. Ryan had watched as the groggy birds has staggered to their feet like drunks after a hard Friday night on the town, shaking their heads and fluffing up their feathers as the electric shock they’d received had finally started to dissipate.

“If our boss has anything to do with it, you’ll probably be asked to sign the English one as well,” Ryan said apologetically.

“It’s no skin off our noses,” Ellen said. “We’re hardly going to offer to sell out story to the tabloids.” She took another sip of her cocktail and grinned at Ryan. He could see the mischief dancing in her eyes but he was certain that they would keep the day’s events to themselves.

Kathy reached for her handbag with her uninjured arm, brought out a piece of paper and slid it over the table to Ryan. “It’s our address. Do look us up if you’re ever in the area. And no doubt this will make it easier for your boss to look us up if he does want something signed.”

They ate together on the terrace, enjoying probably the nicest omelette Ryan had ever eaten in his life – yellow and fluffy, and stuffed full of wild mushrooms and slivers of the delicious black truffles for which Perigord was famous. After tasting the deep, earthy flavour, Ryan could see why they were so highly prized. They’d barely finished desert before their companions were doing their best to stifle yawns. With the adrenaline rush of the day long gone, they were both having justifiable problems staying awake.

After Kathy and Ellen had gone off to their room, Ryan ordered two large cognacs and he and Stephen went to sit beside the river, watching the lights of the hotel play on the dark surface of the water, catching the occasional glimpse of fish darting about in the shallows.

He reached out and stroked his fingertips down Stephen’s cheek, feeling the rasp of stubble and losing himself for a moment in the depths of his lover’s eyes.

Stephen caught Ryan’s hand in his and placed a light kiss to his fingers. “Thank you, Tom. This has been the best birthday ever.” He grinned mischievously. “After all, it’s not every birthday weekend that I get to impersonate Errol Flynn and swing from a chandelier in a chateau.”

“And I bloody missed it,” Ryan grumbled.

“Well, I doubt they’ll let me stage a repeat performance.”

The sound of a vehicle approaching down the driveway drew Ryan’s attention, and he wasn’t surprised to see a military Land Rover pull into the car park. Etienne Lafarge jumped down from the driver’s seat and raised his hand in greeting to Ryan and Stephen. The captain was dressed casually in black jeans and a grey shirt and appeared to be devoid of weapons, although Ryan would have bet his pension that the man was carrying at least three knives and probably a pistol in a lower leg holster under his jeans.

Lafarge was not a man who left anything in life to chance. For once, the Frenchman was not wearing his customary anti-flash glasses. Ryan remembered his eyes from their highly-charged sexual encounter in Beirut. They were silver-grey with a dark halo around the iris. A neighbour of his gran’s had once owned a collie with eyes like that and she’d always said such dogs could see both the wind and the devil. Ryan wouldn’t have been surprised if that was also true of Lafarge. He was a good man to have at your side on an op, but he had always been something of a loose cannon, much like Ryan himself during the break-up of his marriage and its immediate aftermath.

As Lafarge approached, one of the immaculately-dressed hotel staff appeared, took their order for three beers and then discreetly withdrew.

“I shall need several of those,” the Frenchman commented. “I have had a surfeit of politicians today.”

“So they did drag your Minister of the Interior out of the arms of his mistress to deal with this lot?” Ryan said. He been wondering whether Lester had been joking or not with that remark.

Lafarge grinned wolfishly. “He has three mistresses. The trouble was they didn’t know which one he was with.” The grin slid seamlessly into one of the man’s rare genuine smiles. “It seems you and I have a new job, my friend. We must have grown respectable in our old age without noticing. I have been given the go-ahead to have what your director apparently called a show and tell.”

“I’ve got a limited clearance so far,” Ryan said. “But I’ve been told to keep my phone with me.”

For a moment, Lafarge’s mask of amused indifference slipped slightly and Ryan had a glimpse of what lay behind it. A man who was bone-weary and had probably not had any down-time for longer than he cared to remember. France was a big country and Lafarge and his team had no doubt been run ragged since he’d become involved with the anomalies.

When the beers they’d ordered arrived, Lafarge promptly downed half of his at once and asked for a refill. “I am told that tomorrow I have authority to demonstrate our weapons capability and your science team will be offered full access to our laboratoires.” He raised his glass to Ryan and Stephen. “To détente et dinosaures, my friends.”

They raised their glasses and repeated the words.

Later that night, after several more drinks, Lafarge charmed his way into a spare hotel bedroom at the French government’s expense and Ryan and Stephen returned to their room. Moonlight slanted in through the windows as they undressed in the semi-darkness.

The holiday hadn’t turned out quite as Ryan had originally envisaged but from the look of contentment on his lover’s face as he looked down at the pile of presents laid out on the dressing table, it had nonetheless been a successful one.

His only regret was missing the sight of Stephen swinging from a chandelier, sword in hand. But as a consolation prize, someone had very kindly given them both the present of some new toys to play with.

Ryan liked birthdays.


End file.
